Loyola welcomes new dean for the College of Music and Fine Arts

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As Loyola University New Orleans prepares to welcome record numbers of students to its campus this fall, it also welcomes a new dean for the College of Music and Fine Arts. Donald R. Boomgaarden, Ph.D., joined Loyola July 1, after serving five years as the assistant vice president for academic affairs at Loyola College in Maryland.

"I feel tremendously fortunate and honored to be here, and I can’t express my gratitude to the institution for selecting me for this position," Boomgaarden said. "New Orleans is one of America’s great cultural centers, and working in this environment is thrilling. Loyola’s College of Music and Fine Arts is the premier arts program in the Jesuit system, and that’s an impressive group of universities."

Boomgaarden brings a tremendous wealth of fine and performing arts knowledge to Loyola. He has had an extensive career as a composer, pianist and choral conductor and has worked as liturgical musician in the United States and Europe. He is also a noted historian of 18th century opera, music aesthetics and harmonic theory. As an administrator, he has extensive experience developing and marketing new undergraduate and graduate programs.

His writings include a book, "Musical Thought in Eighteenth-Century Britain and Germany," articles in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, the British Dictionary of National Biography, as well as articles and reviews in many scholarly journals including the Journal of Musicological Research, Journal of Music Theory, Ad Parnassum, Chronicle of Higher Education and the Journal of Education and Learning.

Boomgaarden said his initial goal as the new dean will be to learn as much as possible about Loyola’s programs in the arts and to work closely with the CMFA faculty and staff on their established goals.

"Loyola has impressive accomplishments in the arts, and I want to make sure that I encourage everyone to continue this wonderful tradition and assist the institution in its important goals," Boomgaarden said. "The College of Music and Fine Arts has set a goal to raise awareness regionally and nationally of its current programs, and I think this is a great place to start."

While at Loyola College in Maryland, Boomgaarden was heavily involved with program improvement, assessment and faculty development. While there, he helped to create an articulation agreement with Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, which allows students to earn a bachelor of arts or science from Loyola and a bachelor of science in nursing from Johns Hopkins. Boomgaarden also coordinated the college’s Middle States Association re-accreditation process and served on the faculty evaluation committee.

Prior to his work with Loyola Maryland, he was a professor of music history and literature from 1987 – 2004 at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, where he also served as assistant to the provost from 2000 - 2002, and chair of the music department from 1997 - 1999. He was assistant professor of musicology at Ithaca College in New York from 1984 - 1987.

Boomgaarden recently completed the Institute for Management and Leadership in Education program at Harvard Graduate School of Education. He earned his doctorate and master’s degree in musicology from Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., and graduated summa cum laude from Texas State University with a bachelor's degree in music education. As he was concluding his doctoral work at Eastman, Boomgaarden received a Fulbright grant for study at the University of Vienna, Austria, where he remained for two years. He later taught at the University of Salzburg’s Institute of Musicology, where he was the first American to ever hold a visiting professorship in musicology.

For more information, contact Sean Snyder in Loyola’s Office of Public Affairs at smsnyder@loyno.edu or call 504-861-5882.

LoyNews is an e-newswire produced by the Loyola University New Orleans Office of Public Affairs. LoyNews is distributed weekly to local, regional and national news media outlets, communicating the latest news and accomplishments of the university and its community.